Vanja Wikström crashed when her partner got ME: "My body was screaming for help"
Vanja Wikström is the influencer and entrepreneur who had several balls in the air - until one day it just didn't work. Here she talks about burnout and how she finds the bright spots in her everyday life. [...]
- I've been able to work around the clock, all the time, pushing, pushing, pushing, and it works for a while. But at some point you run out, and for me it was when we had children. At the same time, my boyfriend got sick and since then he's basically just got sicker and sicker and we've had more children. So there's more energy that I have to go out with every day. I have a lot less time for myself, for recovery, and then it ends up that it doesn't add up. And then you crash. [...]
- We were terrified because Niklas is ill and can't take care of the family, so it's very much up to me to make sure that our everyday life runs smoothly, and then I got a real wake-up call.
Vanja Wikström on her husband's diagnosis of ME
Vanja's partner Niklas lives with ME, formerly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and it is something that affects his quality of life and life circumstances to a very great extent.
- My boyfriend looks healthy, he's handsome, he looks happy in pictures but he feels like shit. Seventy-five percent of the time he's lying on a bed watching TV because he can't do anything else. His whole life is hijacked by a disgusting disease, but it doesn't show on him, and it also makes it that much harder for people to understand that it's actually real.
She continues:
- 'He can hardly do anything any more, which means that all the responsibility for the family, the children and the finances has been on me for the last few years.
Choosing to think positively and see the bright moments
How does this affect your family and your relationship?
- It's really hard for me, it's really hard for him. But we still have a very nice life I think, given the circumstances we have. Acceptance is perhaps the last and perhaps the most important step when you're feeling bad and have a difficult thing to get through. But now I've accepted it and somehow everything is much easier.
In what way does it get easier?
- It's easier to see all the good things we have and not just think that things could be better. You have to learn to think "how happy I am for what I have", rather than mourning what didn't turn out. Otherwise, the alternative is that you fall into the bitter and sad. You can find yourself there and I have found myself there. It's not a fun place to be, it's not a place you want to live your life.
So Vanja chose to put focus on what's good instead.
- It can be the little, little, little things. That Niklas could be up cooking for the family. That's something that's a given for many families, where they have two functioning parents, but not for us. It's a big thing and you have to take advantage of it and find energy in such bright spots.
